CHANDLER, Ariz. – From the start of this magical, miracle season, but especially during their stunning playoff run, the Giants have been walking the walk, a far cry from their turmoil-ravaged 2006 when all they did was talk the talk. They bought into Tom Coughlin’s suggestion that Talk Is Cheap Play The Game – the great John Unitas’ mantra – and eagerly donned Talk Is Cheap Play The Game t-shirts at training camp in Albany.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, and you won’t wind up on the other team’s bulletin board.

It happens to be the culture Bill Belichick has created over the past six years, during which time he has won three Super Bowl championships.

Unless you are Joe Namath, or Mark Messier in hockey, or Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, you are better served letting sleeping dogs, or in this case favorites, lie.

Alas, early yesterday morning, before the Giants boarded the five Academy buses waiting outside Giants Stadium ready to roll towards Newark Airport, the seductive siren call of the Super Bowl got the best of two of them and swept them away from Talk Is Cheap Play The Game.

The Post’s Lenn Robbins was staked out at the bottom of the ramp that leads to the tunnel that leads to the Big Blue locker room when Plaxico Burress, who does not believe in bulletin board motivation, pulled up in his SUV.

“Ready to make history?” Robbins asked.

“You better believe it,” Burress said.

Harmless enough. Because, as the late Tug McGraw taught us once with the 1973 Mets, Ya Gotta Believe. And, to a man, these Giants believe.

But as Burress walked with his pullalong luggage to the locker room, he now found The Post’s Brian Lewis waiting with a question of his own.

“Do you have a prediction for the game?”

“23-17,” Burress said.

It caught Lewis by surprise. And they were loading trucks, so it was noisy where he was standing with his tape recorder.

“23-17?” Lewis said.

I called Lewis to ask him why he repeated the score.

“I wanted to make sure I heard him right,” Lewis said. “I wanted to make sure there was no misunderstanding. I wanted to make sure there was no vagary.”

“23-17,” Burress said.

Then he disappeared into the locker room.

“I did not ask him which team; I just assumed he meant the Giants,” Lewis said.

Of course he meant the Giants.

That means Burress will be expecting his defense to limit Tom Brady, two-time Super Bowl MVP, to two touchdowns and a field goal.

Perhaps Burress has sources close to Giselle Bundchen telling him that Brady’s much-ballyhooed ankle is more of a problem than anyone around the Patriots is telling us it is.

Wait until Belichick starts passing out photocopies to his players.

All season long, Belichick and the Patriots have been boring us to tears with talk of 18 one-game seasons, and it was no different yesterday.

Now Michael Strahan, a 34-7 loser seven years ago in the only other Super Bowl appearance in his 15-year career, pulled up in his SUV.

Robbins, who apparently liked the answer he got to his question from Burress, went to the well again.

“Ready to make history?” Robbins asked.

“Yes sir,” Strahan said.

“History will be ours.”

And maybe it will be. Maybe Coughlin will be holding the Lombardi Trophy high over his head Sunday night. Maybe the 1972 Dolphins will be clicking champagne glasses and toasting the 2007 Giants for keeping the Patriots from joining them on their perfect pedestal.

One part of me recognizes that Burress and Strahan didn’t get to be the players they are without supreme confidence, or athletic arrogance, and bravado. Burress is coming off a monster game and he never met a cornerback he thought could cover him one-on-one, bum ankle or not, and Strahan never met an offensive tackle he thought could block him one-on-one, 36 years old or not.

The other part of me shouts a Super warning, that this is the worst time and the worst place against the worst opponent to throw your Talk Is Cheap Play The Game t-shirt in the Big Blue laundry bin. The Giants landed at 5:50 p.m. yesterday at Phoenix Sky Harbor International, and arrived soon after, dressed in black as a sign of unity – at their plush, cactus-filled Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Hotel. Men In Black, ready for Desert Storm. “We’re here to go to work,” Burress said. “This is a business trip; we didn’t come here for anything else but to win.”